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The Journal Of Movement Of The World

Either/Or

“Therefore the matter stands thus: If a person avoids choosing, this is the same as the presumption of choosing the world.” – S.A.K.

Recently I have been toying with the question: exactly how lukewarm of a christiam am i?
I wish I could say I was battling with it, but that would be a lie.
And the question isn’t even about whether I am in fact a lukewarm christian, but to what degree I am lukewarm and to what degree I am going to persist in it. (Although I suppose the fact that I am even thinking about this suggests that I am going to work on these flaws)
Here are a few points for consideration
1. There are very finite limits to the amount of time and effort I will expend on service to God. I serve in the bell choir, which is, how shall we say, hardly a service that brings people closer to God, least of all me. Sure, you are making music with fellow christians, but the ways in which I can actually be of use to them, spiritually or otherwise, is minute in such a setting.
2. My financial giving does in some very small, non-negligible quantity serve to integrate me with the rest of the “normal” christians and as anecdotal evidence that I do not prize money over God.
3. Truthfully, money is not a chief priority of mine, I don’t think. If anything I have never defined success the same as the rest of the world. But never have I invited God to define success for me.
4. My thoughts and actions are seldom governed by spiritual axioms. While sometimes I like to think (or fool myself) that this is because some of these spiritual rudiments come so naturally to me I no longer notice them (some do), let it be said that I do not spend most of my waking hours meditating on his word and its implications for my behaviour and my life.
5. There is still a great deal of arrogance in me, a disdain toward people who are less intelligent, less learned, less well-read, a disdain toward people who hate calculus, toward cop-out math majors, toward ignorami, toward people who confuse making promises with keeping them, and some of this disdain is self-righteous, and I don’t like it. One of my biggest targets are people with no imagination, which is really quite unfair, considering they can’t help it. And almost everybody who is ignorant in the things I am well-versed at is well-versed at something else I am ignorant in. Such as fashion. Or athletics. Or I don’t know, cars? (I’m naming crossword topics liangze and I can never solve) and quite early in my life I decided that none of these ‘fields’ should take precedence over another. Perhaps I should have studied something like sociology. Then I would have no reason to disdain anyone, according to comic #435.

In fact, I am vile. Which is essentially Kierkegaarde’s message in Either/Or. By not choosing God, the world becomes my de facto priority. And it has. My thoughts favour earthly things of consequence over earthly things of inconsequence, instead of favouring heavenly things over earthly things altogether.

What bothers me the most out of all of this is that I am so mentally indolent about spiritual things that I know nothing about my religion and how to defend it within logical confines. To some extent it has seemed unnecessary, because there are no challengers. But I also do not invite challengers because I know nothing. I have access to the best and the brightest minds of my university (no kidding. I see them every day and can vouch for their being the smartest chaps among the undergrads) and have every opportunity to confront them about their faith in a God or otherwise but apparently I also have the cheek to tell God “No thanks, I’m good.”

I don’t do anything bad per se, but neither do I do anything good and this neutrality chooses the easiest way out, which is very far from the calling of a child of God.